VW Journey

The 70 VW BUS we bought this thing back in 1997 when we were stationed at Fort Hood TX it was on the lemon lot for $3000 i took out a personal loan with Orchard bank to get that Bus for my wife with the interest they charged who knows what i really paid. My wife wanted it and i made it happen she might have gotten married at the Justice of the peace but she was going to have the things in life she wanted if i had my way. So the Bus was just one of many things i made happen and that 1600 cc engine and half dead generator just kept on keeping up with us. we eventually ended up in KS, Junction City, Fort Riley.......24ID G6 and Company command for her. the bus made it i drove from TX to KS and stopped at every Walmart along the way because the damn generator wasn't charging the batteries and i had to keep replacing them. i went through like 5-6 on that trip. Thats Danny Mendoza in the pic with and Greg Danny owns Reich's foreign car shop in Junction City. he took care of every car i had for 5 years and then stored and shelters the bus in his bay for another 5 years. Thats more then business that's friendship. Thank you Danny. We finally got the bus loaded up and Danny and Greg drove from KS to N. VA to drop it here so i could start this new leg in her life.

Monk ;

Where I work (COOL)

Well I retired AUG 2011 and this is where i have been since that time Fort Belvoir West i think they call it. I took this pic for my old rental in Lorton VA. Would have been a easier commute for real.

Interesting Motorcycles around Woodbridge VA 22193

I know, i have been gone for awhile and allot has happened so look forward to catching up. Right now check out some interesting rides i ran across down here in the DMV (Woodbridge).

retired

So i am retired and there is a ton of stuff to write about but i just wanted to make this special announcement....I joined a fight club tonight was my first grappling night, we eventually got around to sparring and i made someone tap out !!!! representing the 40yr olds for sure. now i ended up tapping out quite a bit being the new guy but still it was good to get a win. I did a little boxing about 20 years ago and i still remember the first time i stepped in the ring at Ft Gordon GA back in 89. Well i had a case of Deva vue today  when i stepped into the octagon for the first time!!!! there is no comparing a boxing ring and a octagon its like being in a jail cell versus being in someone elses house. in a boxing ring you can lean on the ropes and worse case scenario you can exit through the ropes but in the cage u are on lock down and the fence is unforgiving. some one told me i would be in pain tomorrow i had to stop myself from telling them i was in pain about 20mins after i walked in the door. it was good to get some fighting in i need it really bad more to follow

Graduation 2010

went upstairs passing thru and i was asked to participate in the planning of the big event. i opted out but in lite of some recent events i thought twice and actually listened to what was being said. the only part i heard to completion was ....how are you going to know what your responsibilities are ?  well i could only respond with a "my responsibilities are the lights, gas, water phone and cars " then i went back down into the cave to watch Boston whoop up on the Lakers

Socks

My wife has a cast on her foot from an injury while deployed, she was on the couch today and i watched her brutally stretch a sock over the cast to cover her little toes. then as the sock reached it ripping point and you could see where the material is actually woven together and pulling apart i noticed that it had a grey toe and heel, i had just bought a pack of white socks with grey heels and toes in a size 15 (very hard to just find on the shelf). i asked her if it was my sock (singular) cause she only has one cast; therefore only one set of toes to cover, and she said yes its the only ones that fit!!!!!

Later i was washing clothes and noticed that she had quite a bit of my stretched out white grey toe and heel socks size 15 in her hamper and better yet she had a odd number so i wasn't even fortunate enough to match them all. some where i have one normal size 15 white, grey toe and heel sock. i have to try and find it cause i deserve to at least get one use out of it before it gets stretched out too....

15MAR09 Daddy stuff

Well its been a while since i wrote here and i apologize i need to work on that i know. Lots of different things have been going since i started this blog and i haven't really wanted to write until tonight, i just had a conversation with my daughter; (yes the same one that is wearing a uniform to school) in reference to her grades. she is doing horrible in all the majority of her classes and its obvious that its not any ones fault but her own. I want to make her understand that school right now for her is just more then basic skills but more importantly its about life skills. that the work she is doing right now is intended to be the foundation for her as a young women. one of her assignments English i believe was to look up some words, well some of the words were not in her text book and i asked why she hadn't used the dictionary. well ummmm well is the response. one of the words not in the book was cliche and as i was talking to her and telling her to look the words up in the dictionary i told her that she might be a cliche.
Well after some fighting with her younger brother over the dictionary she finally brings me back the work and i ask her what the meanings of some of them were. she is pretty good with memorization so thats good but her comprehension is not on par so the connections are not always there. i threw her for a loop and instead of asking about all the English words i asked her about her other assignment in social studies. she admittedly has not been reading the chapters instead she just looks for the words and fills in the work sheets. well she has an F in SS and i told her to read the chapter tonight. she did and after some talking she was able to tell me a few facts about ISLAM but she couldn't make the connection between the relevance of Muhammad and ISLAM it was pretty sad. i then jump back to the cliche comment and asked her if she knew what i meant? she didnt. i told her she might be considered a cliche. her best guess at the definition was a stereotype but then she couldn't explain what that was either. finally we get to the point where she saids " is it judging a book by its cover? That was enough for me to work with and i started in with my daddy tangent. i told her as a teacher or unsuspecting adult i might judge her based on her clothes, ethnic heritage and casual attitude toward learning. "she still had a look on her face like i dont understand" I told her that there was a reason i dont let them sit around watching BET or MTV and the like because the majority of the videos dont depict ethnic women like herself in a respectful light in my opinion. She saids "you mean like whoreish" i told her that's not what i meant but it will suffice since you seem to make the connection. i then went on to explain that her cliche is like that of so many kids with her ethnic background that they come from broken homes, and have parents that dont care or cant afford to invest the time in their children and that the kids are more concerned with singing and dancing and wearing the in clothes more then anything else. I told her it was a shame and asked her to leave. as she was walking away i told her her family loves her and will continue to support her and will strive to make her realize her potential as a young beautiful ethnic women.

My Daughter

Well i went through my daughters room and took most of her school clothes for all kinds of reasons that i will eventually get into in another post. I ordered her some uniforms from www.buckheaduniforms.com . Me and my wife have had to resort to this before so we will see how it turns out. I will definitely keep you posted.

Eviction, Mortgage and everything that sucks

If you live in Va and you are a renter and your landlord defaults on their mortgage look forward to being treated as a second class citizen and feeling like you are in the process of being molested with out any lubrication. I never thought that i would be in this situation but unfortunately there really isnt much you can do other then learn the process, guesstimate the time you have left, and hopefully find a new place to live. I will try and outline the process as it was explained to me later in another post. But i can say dont get bogged down in emotions or feeling sorry for yourself. If you have been making your rent payments on time and in full then you are not at fault and as a man you just have to do what you do.

Will Ft Belvoir help a soldier before i get evicted or not 26FEB09

Amazingly after i told Ft Belvoir Transportation that i was going to call the IG and Post Commander i received a called from the DOL DIV assistant. She was really nice and did her best to be accommodating which i appreciated. i still haven't gotten a response to the original question WTFO. I am going to let the system work for a until Friday before i escalate the issue. Thank you very much for the call Mrs Sondra

Will Ft Belvoir help a soldier before i get evicted or not 25 FEB 09

BLUF, I am a Active duty soldier married to anther soldier who is currently deployed to IRAQ, we have 4 kids and in-laws that live with us (to help with the kids). We are renting in Lorton VA in a pretty nice home in a pretty nice neighborhood, but just found out that our landlords have defaulted on their mortgage WTFO. We pay $3000 every month on time and we get notified by a 3rd party that the house has not only been foreclosed on but has gone to auction and been bought by Countrywide. This is just me finding an outlet to maybe help someone else,not only this situation but
in life in general.

Well I am still on hold with my transportation office here at Fort Belvoir, I have been caller number 2 for 20minutes. They offer an option where you can leave your number and they will call you back but I don't think i will take that option.
I finally have a real person on the line and she tells me she is new and doesn't know anything other then the fact that Mr Tom Klem DOL DIV Chief 703-805-5674 (the person i have been trying to call for a week without any success is the only person that deals with this type of assistance). I looked up his contact information and went to look for his building 1442 on Jackson Loop and was also unsuccessful. I hope that their are not others soldiers on Ft Belvoir facing this same situation. I will provide a link to the memo that authorizes the assistance that i currently unable to get later. here is an article in the Army Times , this is obviously very distracting and becoming a overwhelming especially for my wife who is deployed to Iraq until Jun09